Pioneer Girl
by MagicSwede1965
Summary: A guest who wants a starring shot on her favorite vintage television series ends up with more than she anticipated. Follows 'Another Sentimental Journey'.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** _My computer problem isn't solved, but it's been circumvented, so I'm back in business. A couple of stories down the line, I'm planning to do another AU anthology of episodes, this time focusing on Julie. For the moment, I present a tale following the premise of the series, and another one with a touch of crossover in it will follow this one. Enjoy!

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§ § § - July 25, 2006

"There's another Enstad in the family," Christian remarked in surprise, scrolling through his e-mail messages on a lazy summer Tuesday evening. "Rudolf and Louisa had their baby today."

"I wasn't aware Rudolf was capable of going into labor," Leslie riposted with playful sarcasm, and ducked the halfhearted swat Christian aimed in her general direction. "She was a few days early, wasn't she? What'd they get?"

"Carl Johan and Amalia are beside themselves, I think," Christian said and chuckled. "Louisa delivered a little girl, and her name is to be Katarina Maria Elisabeta Enstad. Now they have another granddaughter to spoil."

"And Louisa can finally stop being sick, poor kid," Leslie agreed, grinning. "That's wonderful. We should send them something."

"It's slightly late to go shopping today," Christian observed, then laughed while he pretended to cringe at her mock lunge with hands curled like claws. "No, I know what you mean. You'll have to let Mr. Roarke know so you can take some time to make a purchase. Ach, you should only see that gleam in your eyes! I hope that doesn't mean you're dying to have another baby."

"Good heavens, are you joking?" Leslie exclaimed incredulously. "I promise you, if it ever actually does happen, it'll be purely by accident. And, if fate is the slightest bit kind at all, it won't happen till the triplets are at least old enough to start kindergarten. Preferably it won't happen at all. If we hadn't gotten three in one shot like that, I might be more open to the idea, but since we did…"

Christian nodded. "I understand perfectly, my Rose. Well, speaking of triplets, we'd better round them up and get them in bed if we expect to have any quiet time together. Besides, didn't the third season of _King's Castle_ just come out? I know you've been dying to watch the DVD."

"Yup. Okay, let's see where they're hiding." Already she was looking forward to losing herself in her all-time favorite TV series.

§ § § - August 5, 2006

After Roarke had introduced two guests who wanted to be professional drag racers for the weekend, he gave Leslie a thoughtful look. "You've lately been watching the newly released DVD of _King's Castle_, haven't you?"

"One episode a night," Leslie confirmed. "We're almost halfway through the set. Why do you ask?"

Roarke smiled. "Then our next guest should capture your interest, I daresay." He gestured to the dock, where a woman perhaps Leslie's age was trying to get a look at what lay ahead of her, in between being plied with leis and exotic drinks in equally exotic containers. "Mrs. Stacey Buckner Kendall, from Wiscasset, Maine, where she was born and raised and has lived all her life so far. Which, perhaps, is one reason she has always been such a fan of the old television series _Trail to Oregon_. Do you remember it?"

Leslie thought back a bit. "Some," she said. "I didn't watch it much, but sometimes when I wasn't doing anything else, I'd sit down with Mom and catch an episode. Wasn't it about a family on the Oregon Trail, beating back all kinds of hardships like desert lands without any watering holes, and marauding Indian tribes, and wild animals? I seem to remember one episode where they had to shoot and butcher a buffalo. My sister Kelly was disappointed that they didn't show the actual carcass being sliced up."

Roarke laughed. "Your memory seems to be intact, though you may prefer to discuss it with Mrs. Kendall. She is your age, and as with you for _King's Castle_, her love for _Trail to Oregon_ has never died. Perhaps it has even increased over the years. She envied the actors who starred in it, wrote numerous fan letters to them, collected autographed photos of them, and has been lately buying and collecting memorabilia of all sorts from online auction sites and wherever else she can find it."

"Dedicated," Leslie commented. "So what's her fantasy, then? About all that's left to do is be on the show."

"Essentially, that's her fantasy. She says she used to daydream about having a new, permanent role created for her, as part of the family in the show, and be a part of the series she's so enamored of. Now she wants to go back, if at all possible, and fulfill that dream."

"Of course it's possible. Isn't everything possible on Fantasy Island, after all?" his daughter countered with a whimsical grin.

He half-smiled back. "More than either you or Mrs. Kendall may anticipate." The native girl appeared with his drink. "My dear guests! I am Mr. Roarke, your host. Welcome to Fantasy Island!"

‡ ‡ ‡

Stacey Buckner Kendall was a slight woman, shorter than Leslie and even more slender, with feathery milk-chocolate-colored waves in her hair and an excited gleam in her tea-brown eyes. Her grin was so wide in her small pointed face that it looked close to splitting her head in half. "Hi, Mr. Roarke," she said, coming into the house a full fifteen minutes ahead of her appointed time. "Sorry I'm early, but I just couldn't wait."

"That's quite all right, Mrs. Kendall. Please have a seat; may we get you anything?" offered Roarke.

"No thanks." She took the chair beside Leslie's and aimed a smile at her. "Do they call you Your Highness a lot?" Her Down-East accent was reminiscent of those Leslie had heard in her early childhood, and it made her smile.

"Not here at home they don't," she said good-naturedly. "Just call me Leslie."

"Then I'm Stacey." The woman tugged at her colorful tropical blouse, which Leslie was sure she must have picked up at the airport in Honolulu on her layover while in wait to board the island's charter. "Wow, you don't know how excited I am. I've lived all my life in Wiscasset, and I love it, but I've always dreamed of seeing other places. So since I moved out on my own, I've tried to take a trip every year. Washington, D.C., New York City, L.A., Chicago…I managed to make it to Canada a few years ago and even went to London once. Last year I got out to Portland, Oregon. I went there partly because I'd heard so much about it through my favorite TV show, you know, and partly as research for this fantasy. South of Portland, they have this place where tourists can go to see where the Oregon Trail ended. They have exhibits, real covered wagons, loads of information…"

"Which no doubt stoked your decision to ask for this fantasy," Roarke said.

Stacey nodded vigorously. "This is my big trip for this year, so now I can say I've seen Hawaii, even if I didn't really get past the airport." She grinned, not the least bit sheepish. "Anyway, I thought it couldn't hurt to see if I could fulfill a fantasy I've had since I was a kid watching _Trail to Oregon_ every Thursday night on TV. You remember that, Leslie? On UBS? The mother and father, three kids and a collie, plus a team of four horses, traveling in a covered-wagon train? I always wanted like mad to be the fourth kid on that show. I wanted it so much I even started writing stories about it, including the character I made up for myself. I guess it's what they call fan fiction now, but back then it was just something I did so I could pretend I was part of my favorite show. And then, well, I was going through brochures at the local travel agent, trying to decide where I wanted to go this year, and I found one for Fantasy Island. It sounded incredible, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm still psyched you actually agreed to let me come here and live out my fantasy."

"What kind of character did you wish you could play?" Leslie asked curiously.

Stacey went pink, but that didn't seem to deter her enthusiasm in talking about what was clearly her favorite subject. "The family consisted of two sons and a daughter, which I thought was really unfair—I never could understand why TV shows with an odd number of kids in a family always had to have the boys outnumber the girls. So I inserted myself as another sibling, the sister to the three kids, and gave myself my favorite old-fashioned name—Carrie, after the third sister in Laura Ingalls Wilder's books. I still have all the stories I wrote way back when. To tell the truth, I've rewritten them and done new ones, and posted everything on a fan-fiction site online. It helped me find a bunch of other fans, so I belong to a lot of online clubs for fans of _Trail to Oregon_ now, and have all kinds of new friends. But I'm the first one to try something like this."

"I see," said Roarke, by now looking amused. "So your fantasy, then, is to be your made-up character, Carrie, on this television series."

"That's right, Mr. Roarke," Stacey confirmed eagerly. "Can I start right now?"

Leslie grinned broadly; Roarke chuckled. "Well, perhaps not 'right away'," he said humorously. "First, of course, you must make preparations, and to that end, we have assisted you with the proper clothing for the era. If you'll follow us, please…" As one, the three arose, and Roarke preceded the two women to the door of the time-travel room. Inside, Stacey gasped at the highly detailed covered wagon, built to one-fourth life-size scale, that sat on a large table in the middle of the room. There were several western prints on the walls, a wagon wheel leaning in one corner, and a chair on which sat a box filled with fabric.

"Oh, I want to take this home with me!" Stacey cried delightedly, slowly circling the table with the wagon on it. She peered into the interior and gasped again at the perfect, detailed furniture, bundle-wrapped and crated belongings, lanterns and candles, large cast-iron pots, and even a couple of period-piece shotguns therein. A set of four horses, all brown, were harnessed to the front of the wagon, and the figures of a man and a woman sat on the buckboard, with the man holding the reins. The figures of three young children peered out around their shoulders; prancing beside the wagon was a beautifully lifelike stuffed collie dog, head raised and tail up, raring to go.

"This is fabulous," Stacey exclaimed. "The dolls look exactly like Charles Hobart, Christine Vandermeer, Mills Brentwood, Tiffany Gale and Sammy Hastings. Where in the world did you get them? I mean, even Sadie the dog looks real!"

Roarke just smiled. "Before you become too involved in examining the display, Mrs. Kendall, may I call your attention to these." He indicated the box that sat on the chair, and as if prompted, Leslie lifted out a long, homespun calico dress, printed with small sprigs of daisies, that looked a little faded, as if from numerous washings. "Before you begin your fantasy, you may wish to change into this dress, along with the sunbonnet you'll find in the box, and the shoes here on the floor."

"Oh wow," Stacey gasped. "That's just the sort of dress I always figured my character would wear if I was on the show. How the heck did you know?"

"Glad you like it," Leslie said, ignoring the question the way she knew Roarke would have. "We'll leave you alone to change. Once you're ready, you can go and check out the display all you want. Pretty soon your fantasy will start."

"Sounds great by me," Stacey said eagerly. "Thanks a million, you two. This is just wicked awesome, as my nieces and nephews would say. Thanks!" Roarke and Leslie both smiled at her, wished her luck, and quietly departed, closing her in the little room.

Stacey swiftly changed into the period clothing, her stomach dancing with excitement all the while. How she'd wished to be on the show; now she got to return to the 1970s and actually live out her fantasy, meet the actors, play the role on the series that she had always wanted to! Unconsciously she started humming the show's theme song as she dropped the box on the floor, sat in the chair and patiently fastened up the nineteenth-century high-buttoned shoes, which looked more like boots to her.

Then she arose and once more studied with admiration the covered wagon and the dolls representing the show's characters. As she waited, she thought about what the actors were doing now: Charles Hobart had retired from show business, as had Sammy Hastings, who was now a veterinarian in Iowa the last Stacey had read. Christine Vandermeer had starred in one other popular TV show, a soap opera that hadn't been Stacey's favorite style of program, but which she'd watched anyway out of loyalty to one of her favorite performers. Mills Brentwood had shifted from acting to rock music, and fronted a still-popular country band. And Tiffany Gale, after dropping out of sight for a few years to finish school when _Trail to Oregon_ ended, had made a successful comeback and now starred in a popular comedy series which Stacey watched faithfully, though she still preferred _Trail to Oregon_. She supposed that made her either stubborn or stuck in the past, but she didn't care. She knew what she liked, didn't she?

She squinted at the figure of Tiffany Gale's character, Emily, then realized why she was having trouble seeing: the whole room was gradually darkening, as of the onset of twilight. Once she became aware of it, the process sped up, so that in seconds all she could see was pitch darkness.

Then she thought she caught something in her peripheral vision and looked up, only to see stars winking on in rapid succession till they pockmarked the ceiling. At the same time, she detected the sound of crickets _chee_-ing energetically and the soft snap of a fire. She whirled around and saw a figure at the fire, gazing into the flames, without moving.

She must have gasped, or made some other sound, for the next thing she knew he was on his feet, so abruptly it made her blink and shrink back. "Who's that?" a male voice demanded.

"It's just me," Stacey quavered without thinking, too scared to say anything else.

But the man relaxed and lowered the gun he had been lifting. "Carrie Rogers, you gave me a fright," he scolded and squatted by the fire again, balancing on the balls of his feet. "What're you doing up? You should be asleep."

"Well, I, uh…" Stacey faltered.

The man chuckled. "Never you mind. Sometimes you just can't sleep. I understand completely. Come sit here by the fire, don't just stand there making a target of yourself. Few too many Indians out this way, you know."

Stacey, slowly recovering, finally squinted around her and realized there seemed to be something missing: it was very dark, and she could see nothing other than the outlines of about twenty covered wagons, drawn in a circle. No TV cameras, no directors, no floodlights to give the scene the proper illumination. "Where is everybody?" she asked, approaching the fire.

"Asleep, mostly," said the man, whom she now recognized as Charles Hobart, who had played the family patriarch, Jack Rogers. "Come sit here if you're not going back to bed, so that if your mother wakes, she'll see you when she comes looking for you."

"Okay," Stacey agreed and gingerly settled down beside him. She peered uneasily around her once more, then shook her head and decided to provoke the director's wrath just to get her bearings. "What am I supposed to say next? I forgot my lines."

The only reaction she got was from her companion, who slowly turned to stare at her. "Forgot your lines? You're not reciting poetry in school, Carrie, not anymore, not unless your mother insisted." He grinned, his teeth gleaming dully in the firelight.

And that's when Stacey knew. The realization hit her like a bucket of ice water. "Oh boy," she mumbled. "It's not a TV show…it's _real!"_


	2. Chapter 2

§ § § - August 5, 2006

Stacey awoke by slow degrees, trying to figure out why her mattress was so hard and why it felt as if she had left the bedroom window open in the middle of January. The floor rocked all of a sudden and her eyes flew open from the fear that she was experiencing an earthquake. The canvas roof that arced over her head was letting in copious sunlight, and she blinked several times before her memory returned at last, in one huge avalanche.

She pushed herself into a sitting position, wincing when assorted joints and, seemingly, her entire back protested. "Well, sleepyhead, you're finally awake," said a girl's voice. "Ma's been wondering what happened to you."

Stacey squinted at her, still a little bleary-eyed. "Huh?" was all she could manage before she recognized Tiffany Gale—or rather, Emily Rogers.

The girl grinned at her. "Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, aren't we?"

"Leave her alone, Emily," ordered the voice of an older boy, and Stacey recognized it as belonging to Mills Brentwood—_no, no, Caleb Rogers, _she corrected herself. It reminded her that she wanted to corner Roarke and have a long, stern talk with him. "Pa said she had trouble sleeping last night and to let her be."

"She's had trouble sleeping ever since we left Paterson," Emily scoffed, picking up a bucket. "Pa never made any allowances for that before, so why start now?"

"Because we're all getting sick of sleeping under canvas and listening out for Indians and coyotes," Caleb retorted. "I've been having some trouble myself, mind, so don't you start in. Say, Carrie, since you're up, how 'bout coming on out and helping us with breakfast?"

About to say she couldn't cook, she was cut off before she began when Emily thrust the bucket at her. "Here," she said, "you can fetch some water. Ma can't start our oatmeal without it." Caleb nodded and climbed out of the wagon, rocking the floor again, and Emily waited till he was gone before she said conspiratorially to Stacey, "You can take as long as you want, sis. I'm getting really tired of nothing but oatmeal every day anyway." She giggled and clambered out in her brother's wake, leaving Stacey alone to struggle out of the long johns and heavy flannel that had served for pajamas and to change into the dress Roarke and Leslie had given her.

"Well, damn," Stacey muttered to herself, laboriously buttoning her shoes again. "I am so mad I can't see straight. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Just wait till I get hold of that Mr. Roarke, I'm gonna give him such a piece of my mind…"

"_Carrie!"_ shouted a woman's voice. "Stop dawdling and come out this instant. I need to make breakfast before we get going, and you're holding up the entire train!"

Stacey forced herself to call back, "Yes, Ma," before hooking the last of the buttons closed and getting to her feet. She nearly got tangled in her skirt climbing out of the wagon, and tried to avoid all eyes as she hastily scanned the landscape and, to her relief, located a river flowing serenely some little distance from the campsite. She struck out for it with determination, telling herself grimly that if she was really stuck here, she might as well make the most of it.

She dipped up a bucketful of water and trudged back to the campsite, handing it over to Christine Vandermeer's doppelganger, Mary Anna Rogers. The woman dumped the water into her cooking pot and handed the bucket right back to Stacey. "We need some more," she said, peering oddly at her. "What's happened to you, girl? You've been a slugabed today. Not yourself at all."

"I couldn't sleep last night," Stacey ventured weakly, and at Mary Anna's faintly exasperated look, elaborated, "Worse than usual, that is."

"I don't think you're ever gonna turn her into a country girl, Ma," observed the last member of the Rogers family, Josiah, the character portrayed by Sammy Hastings. He was a couple of years older than Caleb; Emily was the baby. In her stories Stacey had always planted Carrie in the birth order between Josiah and Caleb, but right now she felt younger than Emily. "Carrie's a city girl, first and foremost. By the time we get to Oregon she'll likely be dead of insomnia."

Irked, Stacey retorted, "Thanks a lot." Swinging the bucket in a righteous wrath, she strode to the river again, hearing Josiah's laughter behind her and feeling her face get hot. She was really steaming by the time she got to the riverbank, almost enough to jump in.

"And how is your fantasy going, Mrs. Kendall?" asked a genteel Latin accent from quite near by. Stacey jerked up straight and found herself glaring at Roarke, who stood calmly next to one of the trees through which the river flowed, immaculate and enviably twenty-first-century in his white suit.

She was so mad she lashed out instantly. "It's a complete bust, Mr. Roarke," she snapped. "You really blew it, let me tell you. This is _not_ what I wanted! I expected you to set things up so I could play a role and meet the actors! I didn't want to live this stuff in real life! Don't you get it? I wanted to be part of the television series!"

Roarke looked just a little startled. "Oh," he said. "I am terribly sorry, Mrs. Kendall."

"_Sorry_ just isn't gonna cut it," Stacey retorted. "I want you to fix this right now! I want to go back to 2006 right this minute, and I'll wait while you set this fantasy up the way I wanted it in the first place, so that I can be on the TV show and not on the actual Oregon Trail. I paid for the fun stuff, not the cold hard reality."

"Mrs. Kendall," Roarke said gently, "while I apologize profoundly for the error, I must point out to you that you never actually specified the television series when you asked for this fantasy. You merely asked to spend a weekend playing the character you created for yourself in the world of the show."

She stared at him. "Oh, come on, you gotta be kidding! I'm not cut out for this kind of thing. I can't cook, I can't hunt, I can't even sleep! I can barely fetch water! Mrs. Rogers told me we had to have more water when I brought back a bucketful. I could barely carry it as it was, and it was only half full! No, this isn't what I asked for. I wanted to be on the TV show. That's what I…"

But he was already shaking his head. "I'm sorry…but once a fantasy has begun, I cannot change nor stop it. Here you are; you must make the best of it."

"You can't be serious!" Stacey cried.

Roarke nodded; his expression was regretful but firm. "You are not the first person who wished to alter a fantasy in progress."

"What if I pay you extra?" Stacey begged desperately. "Mr. Roarke, you don't understand. I just can't go through with this. You can't honestly tell me you're completely unable to stop a fantasy. I mean, what if somebody's mother dies right in the middle and they have to go home immediately? Are you saying you can't even stop it then? I mean, come on!"

Roarke stared at her in surprise for a few seconds, then visibly repressed a smile. "I am unaware of such an emergency in your case, Mrs. Kendall, although of course, if something of the sort did happen, you would be notified promptly." He shook his head a little. "Merely having little faith in your own capabilities doesn't qualify for emergency status. This is the fantasy you asked for, and it is the fantasy I am granting you. It's yours; now it's up to you to make the best of it that you possibly can."

Stacey, determined, stood her ground. "I wanted to be on the TV show, and that's what I'm demanding. If you don't give me the fantasy I asked for, then I want my money back and I'll go straight home."

"Indeed," said Roarke, looking unperturbed. "Are you quite certain?"

"Dead certain. Either put me on the TV series, or pay me back and I'll leave. I'm telling you, that's what I asked you for. You'll have to prove I didn't."

Roarke nodded once or twice. "Very well, Mrs. Kendall. I'll return when I am able." So saying, he lost himself in the trees; Stacey started after him, but when she got past the tree he had been standing beside, she saw nothing but foliage and trunks. She let out a loud, disgusted curse and dunked her bucket into the water, then struggled mightily to pull it out.

"For cryin' out loud, you're taking forever!" complained Josiah's voice from behind her. "Here, gimme that." He grabbed the bucket handle and easily hefted it out of the water, then shot her a condescending look. "Come on, Miss Useless, at least you can tidy up the wagon."

Humiliated and fuming, Stacey followed him, wishing she could simply plant herself beside the tree where she and Roarke had been talking and wait there for him. She was anticipating the moment when he returned, admitted he'd goofed and brought her back so that she could participate in the TV series the way she'd wanted in the first place. Boy, would she gloat then…it would be a treat to see the last of this forsaken bit of nowhere.

‡ ‡ ‡

Leslie burst out laughing when Roarke told her what had happened. "You're kidding!" she exclaimed. "She's not backing down?"

"No," said Roarke with a heavy sigh. "I am afraid I must ask you to locate Mrs. Kendall's original letter for me, so that I can show it to her and make it clear that she did not in fact ask to be placed on the television series."

Leslie, giggling, got up from behind the desk. "I'm sorry, Father, but I think it's funny. I guess that should teach her to be very careful what she asks for, huh? Are you going to change her fantasy for her if this doesn't work?"

Roarke gave her a look. "Surely you jest."

"I probably am," Leslie admitted, snickering. "I can't wait to find out what her reaction is when she sees the letter. Hmm, let me see, I probably stored it in the usual place in the credenza." She knelt in front of the proper drawer and pulled it out, vaguely regretting the loss of her accidentally-acquired X-ray vision which had finally faded away for her around mid-July. There had been times when it had really come in handy.

It took her only a few minutes to locate it, however, and she slowly stood up and pushed the drawer shut without really thinking about it, becoming engrossed in the letter. She smiled a little at its contents, and when she finished reading and looked up, she saw Roarke watching her. "Well?" he prompted.

"What did Mrs. Kendall tell you she said, exactly?" Leslie asked, approaching the desk.

"She claims that she asked to be placed on the television series for a weekend, as I told you. Since you are now holding the missive in question, perhaps you'll be kind enough to refresh my memory as to precisely what she requested."

He was royally annoyed, Leslie realized, and smiled again. "Okay, Father. Let's see. _Dear Mr. Roarke, my name is Stacey Buckner Kendall and I live in Maine. I'm a huge, huge, lifetime fan of_ Trail to Oregon, _the old TV series, and ever since I first started watching it, I've wanted to be part of that world. I imagined myself being a part of the show, and even wrote stories about it with a new character I created for myself, named Carrie. I'd give anything to be there for one weekend. I loved the show and everything about it, and I still do. I've even read about the time period it took place in, and the whole thing sounds really romantic. I loved the way the actors got to portray history and wished I could do the same thing. Could you consider granting me my fantasy? I'm willing to pay five thousand dollars—practically my entire savings. It's been my dream for decades. Thanks for your consideration. Sincerely, Stacey Buckner Kendall."_

Roarke frowned. "Her wording was ambiguous at best, don't you think?"

Leslie, feeling suddenly caught in the middle, cleared her throat and hitched a shoulder, the way she'd so often done as a teenager when he was in a bad mood or scolding her. "Well…I suppose it was, but…I have to admit, to me it sounds like she wanted to be part of the show, not the actual time period it took place in." Roarke's dark eyes widened, and she cringed a little. "I'm sorry, but it does."

"May I see that, please?" Roarke extended his hand, and she gave him the letter, which he read at least twice while she watched. "Leslie," he said finally, "she does not state specifically that she wished to be part of the television series."

"Maybe not," Leslie protested spiritedly, "but she talks about the show, not the time period. I figure it was easy enough to decipher from the context."

"She states that she wishes to have the chance to portray history, and that she was fascinated by those times," said Roarke. "From that, I inferred that she would like to go back in time and experience them."

"You really thought she'd want to return to the Oregon Trail itself, and not the show that highlighted it?" Leslie said, shaking her head. "It doesn't look that way to me. Don't you remember what she said when she was telling us about it, just before you sent her into her fantasy? All she could talk about was the show and its influence on her life, both then and now. If you ask me, that's what she was expecting, not a trip to the nineteenth century. I hate to tell you this, but I think this is one time you goofed."

Roarke stared at her as if he thought she was betraying him, and this was the scene that Christian walked in on. "Hello, Mr. Roarke…uh-oh. Something's wrong, isn't it?"

Leslie smiled at him. "Hi, my love. We're just having a difference of opinion."

"Over what?" Christian inquired curiously.

Roarke seemed to think about it a moment, and Leslie suggested, "Maybe Christian can break the impasse, Father. Why don't you let him read that and see what he thinks."

"Very well," Roarke agreed and gave Christian the letter. The prince frowned at the first line, then glanced back and forth between his wife and his father-in-law.

"What impasse am I supposed to be breaking?" he wanted to know.

"Read the letter," Leslie urged, "and then tell us what fantasy you think she was asking us for."

Christian looked dubious, but obliged anyway. Like Roarke, he read the letter twice, much more slowly the second time, scowling at some lines as if he wasn't sure what language they were in. Finally he shrugged and handed the letter back to Roarke. "I think she's asking to be on the television series."

Roarke stared at him, and Leslie grinned. "That's what I think too, but Father interpreted it a whole different way and sent her back to the actual Oregon Trail."

Christian's eyes lit with surprise, and then he began to laugh. "Ach. And don't tell me, Mr. Roarke…you've gone to check on her, and met with her wrath."

"Succinctly put," Roarke agreed, sighing. "Perhaps I am in the wrong, if someone other than Leslie thinks she wished to be on the television series. Unfortunately, as I informed Mrs. Kendall, I can't stop her fantasy now."

Christian eyed him askance; Leslie was bolder. "Can't, or won't? There's that old mantra, Father…you know, 'the customer is always right'. If she asked to be on the TV show, and you didn't give her that, then you're obligated to fix the problem. Right?"

Roarke shook his head impatiently. "This is not the first time that a guest has evinced apparent dissatisfaction with a fantasy, but it's certainly the first time my own assistant has sided with the guest in question and insisted I change things midstream. Frankly, I think the two of you unduly influence each other. What I need is an impartial third party."

Christian put in, "I have to ask why you'd bother, when in the end it's your decision anyhow, Mr. Roarke. And from where I stand, it appears you're not going to change your mind."

"This may have happened before," Leslie said gently when Roarke didn't reply right away, "but I don't think the dispute's ever been so clear-cut before. I think, just this once, you'll have to call a halt to this version of the fantasy and set things up for the one she really wants."

Roarke read the letter one more time, then sighed to himself. "Perhaps you're right. Very well, I'll begin making the arrangements, and when it's ready, Leslie, you can bring Mrs. Kendall back." He folded the page as he spoke and returned it to its envelope; dropping it on the desktop, he left the house.

Christian studied his wife with interest. "Do you suppose Tattoo ever put up the sort of elegant argument you just did, and came out on the winning side?"

"I don't know," Leslie admitted and grinned. "To tell you the truth, I didn't really expect him to give in. He's never made a change before just because a guest threw a fit over semantics. He always let the situation stand—must've figured it was good for the guest. You know, teach them something."

"Some people don't want to be taught," said Christian, chuckling. "They just want what they want, without complications. I'll look forward to seeing how this one ultimately turns out."


	3. Chapter 3

§ § § - August 5, 2006

The wagon train had been under way for a couple of hours now, making Stacey a little apprehensive as to how Roarke was going to get in touch with her now, but mostly lulling her into a bored doze. The day had grown surprisingly hot after the chilly night, and the rhythmic creaking of the wheels; the heavy panting of Sadie the collie, who lay by her side under the canvas; the endless clop-clop of oxen's and horses' hooves; the continuous and prolonged scree of cicadas in the long, wild grass—all this seemed to be conspiring to cure "Carrie's" insomniac tendencies. It was so obvious that the other Rogers family members began making surprised comments on it, till Stacey got fed up and barked at Josiah, Caleb and Emily to leave her alone.

"Well, maybe she is still an insomniac," Caleb reasoned. "She hasn't caught up on enough sleep yet to stop being a grouch."

"I don't think it's fair she and Emily get to ride in the wagon while we have to walk," Josiah remarked with an ominous look at the girls. Emily stuck out her tongue at him.

"It's good to be female," Stacey said smugly.

"Yeah, it's fun to be a girl," Emily seconded, copying Stacey's expression with uncanny accuracy. "I wouldn't be a boy for any amount of money."

Anselm Rogers, the family patriarch, reined in his horse just then; he had spent the morning thus far riding regularly up and down the column, keeping the wagons in line. "Do I hear arguing going on here?"

"Who, us?" said Josiah innocently. Stacey blinked sleepily at Anselm; Emily cocked her head to one side; Caleb smiled angelically.

Mary Anna, walking ahead of the oxen, glanced back over her shoulder and smiled wryly. "That's my family," she said. "Carrie, are you finally getting some sleep up there?"

"It's kind of hard to," Stacey said, glancing around at her weekend siblings, "what with all the not-so-helpful observations about my condition."

"I wasn't saying anything," Emily immediately claimed. The boys just shrugged at each other; Sadie thumped her tail as though in consensus.

Anselm and Mary Anna looked at each other and chuckled resignedly. "I know it's not easy," Anselm said. "But you know we're in the Wyoming territory now, so we've put the better part of the continent behind us. Just a few more months, and probably one more wintering, and we'll be in the Oregon country."

_Geez,_ thought Stacey, _only a few more_ _months__?_ _If they only knew that a century and a half from now, all it takes is five hours to cross from coast to coast by airplane!_ She tried to look excited while the others cheered; but the only thing that could really get her adrenaline going was the anticipation of seeing Roarke and hearing him tell her that he was taking her back to the present day and letting her be part of the TV show this whole farce was supposed to have been in the first place.

When the wagons stopped for the so-called "nooning", Stacey volunteered to get water, to Mary Anna's apparent surprise. She handed Stacey the bucket without comment, however, and Stacey hurried to the nearby river that they'd been following all this time, frantically scanning the surrounding area for Roarke. There weren't many trees here, except those that grew near the riverbanks, and she expected him to show up in the same manner he had earlier.

But it wasn't Roarke whose voice startled Stacey so badly she nearly toppled over into the water. "How's it going, Stacey?" asked Leslie.

"Where'd you come from?" Stacey demanded, gasping from shock. "And what happened to Roarke, anyway? He was supposed to come back for me."

"Oh," said Leslie and smiled. "Actually, Father's in the process of making the necessary changes and preparations for you to have the fantasy you asked for."

Stacey relaxed with supreme satisfaction. "Oh, good. That's just what I was hoping for. The only thing better would be if it was ready right now and we could go back this instant. Well, so how long's it gonna take?"

Leslie cleared her throat and looked a little apprehensive. "Uh…I'm not sure. He didn't tell me that. It could be a while, though, from what I gather." She raised both hands when Stacey drew in a breath to object. "Look, this kind of thing takes time to calibrate. Time travel isn't just something you throw together casually. All the conditions have to be right and everything has to be in its proper place. If something's out of alignment, then boom…you've got problems. Wouldn't you rather let Father take the time he needs to get it right, so you can drop right back into the set of _Trail to Oregon_ in 1976?"

Stacey considered this, then heaved a deep sigh and nodded. "I don't understand anything about it, but okay, if you say so. Do you think he'll get done in enough time for me to at least have one day on the set?"

"Oh, I imagine so. Either he or I will keep you posted," Leslie promised. "In the meantime, just hang in there. Think of this as an opportunity to really get into your character."

Stacey threw her a strange look, then twisted around at the sound of Mary Anna shouting, "Carrie, where are you?" from the campsite.

"Coming, Ma!" she hollered back. "Listen, Leslie, tell Mr. Roarke for me that—" She turned back as she spoke, only to find that she was alone again. "Dammit, I hate like hell the way they do that. If they keep that up, I'm gonna start thinking they're not even human." She heaved her bucket out of the river with a groan, struggled to her feet, and staggered back to the campsite, trying her utmost not to spill the bucket's contents.

As soon as she got there, Mary Anna handed her a ladle, and she began dipping water from the bucket for the pioneers to drink. Most came up to her in an orderly line and presented tin cups for filling. A few hung back, then filled their own cups after Anselm handed her what appeared to be a piece of leather. About to dip out some water for herself, she forgot all about it at sight of this.

"Uh…'scuse me a second, uh, Pa…" The appellation didn't roll as well off her tongue as she had always thought it would. "What's this?"

"Buffalo jerky," he said, staring at her in surprise. "You've been eating it on the trail for weeks now, at least. Are you feeling all right, Carrie?"

Right now, she reflected queasily, she was feeling like a vegetarian. "I guess I'm not. Maybe it's the heat…kind of heavy food for hot weather like this, isn't it? Could I maybe have something else?"

"There _is_ nothing else," said Mary Anna shortly. "Really, Carrie, you've suddenly become quite a trial."

But Anselm was removing his hat and dragging a sleeve over his brow. "Ease up, Mary Anna, the girl's right." He smiled sympathetically at Stacey. "Hate to say it, but your ma's right. You don't have to eat it all right now, save some for later if you get hungry while we're moving. But have a little at least, all right?"

"Sure," Stacey murmured without enthusiasm, and trudged back to the wagon's buckboard to rest while she ate. Dubiously she lifted the piece of jerky, peered at it, then shrugged and gingerly gnawed at a tiny bit on the end. It took her most of five minutes in the hot, dusty sunlight just to work off a piece the size of her thumbnail, and she spent about the same amount of time chewing. The only good thing about this "lunch" was that it was surprisingly tasty, and she found herself wondering whether the actors on the TV show had ever had buffalo jerky. _Not when you're being catered by some of the best chefs in Hollywood, I'll bet,_ she thought, finally managing to swallow the tough piece of meat. She was hungry enough now to wrestle with the jerky strip for another bite.

Masculine laughter greeted her efforts, and she froze in mid-gnaw, glaring at Josiah and Caleb. "Haven't got the choppers all of a sudden, sis?" Caleb taunted.

"You are seriously hateful," Stacey muttered at him around a mouthful of meat. "Get lost, willya? I'm trying to eat my lunch here." The boys just laughed again, but they did take themselves elsewhere, leaving her to continue the battle to fill her stomach. After her third bite, she decided the drawbacks outweighed the advantages, and handed the rest of the jerky to the eager Sadie while she went for the water bucket to fill herself up that way.

Emily sat beside her on the buckboard after the train got back on the road (_on the trail, dumbbell,_ Stacey corrected herself), absently watching her father riding back and forth and her mother leading the oxen pulling their wagon. "I wonder if it gets this hot in Oregon," she remarked.

Stacey recalled last year's trip to the Oregon Trail museum she'd visited, and almost made the mistake of telling her that it tended to be hot and very dry there in summer, according to what she had been told. She merely shrugged so that Emily would see she'd paid some attention, while wondering if, like most pioneers, the Rogers family meant to settle in the area of present-day Portland. It astonished her to realize that the TV series, while successful and lasting six seasons, had in fact never actually addressed this question. The last episode had shown the family being optimistic about the trail's end while following what was evidently supposed to be the Columbia River.

With this in mind, she peered at Emily and tried to sound casual. "Say, sis, have Ma and Pa ever talked about where we're gonna settle? I mean…there're a lot of mountains to get across, you know. And one side of Oregon's desert and the other side's fertile." At Emily's odd look, she added hastily, "So I've heard."

"Well," Emily said with a faintly haughty air, "if one side's desert and the other's fertile, then it seems to me that Ma and Pa'd want to settle on the fertile side."

_Oh, hell. _ Stacey slumped where she sat and gave up. She might as well assume that they were headed for the Willamette Valley and stop asking questions before the others decided she was mentally deficient. _Mr. Roarke, where are you? Can't you hurry up with fixing my stupid fantasy?_

‡ ‡ ‡

"So how are things progressing with altering Mrs. Kendall's fantasy?" Christian couldn't resist asking at lunch. Roarke frowned a little but said nothing, and the prince prodded, "That bad?"

"The time-travel calibrations must be exact," Roarke finally said reluctantly, as if revealing a trade secret, "and as a matter of fact, the time period Mrs. Kendall originally asked for…_allegedly_…is simply not available to me at this moment. I'll have to try again this afternoon when conditions may be better."

Leslie sighed softly. "Father, her letter could read that way, you know it—and she herself insists that's what she requested. Don't forget, the customer—"

"—is always right?" Roarke broke in, finishing the decrepit saying for her. "And should a customer insist that his fantasy is to commit suicide and I decide to grant it only to the point that he is seriously injured, is the customer still right?"

Leslie gaped at him; Christian choked back a startled laugh. Roarke's sarcastic question seemed to hang in the air like a small ash cloud over the table, and the Enstads exchanged slightly nervous glances before slowly returning to their lunches. For quite a while no one said anything.

"Ampa sad," said Karina then, completely out of the blue.

Roarke looked up sharply, as startled as the child's parents; then Christian chuckled, while Leslie observed dryly, "I don't think 'sad' is quite the right word."

"Leslie, I am doing everything within my power to make the changes Mrs. Kendall insists upon," said Roarke with only barely leashed impatience. "Tell me, what else do you think I should do?"

Christian cleared his throat. "Perhaps you should get that third opinion after all."

"Perhaps I should," Roarke concurred, eyeing him just long enough to make him raise a brow in response. "Leslie, after lunch, I'd like you to telephone Rogan and ask him to come to my office for a bit."

A little more than half an hour later, after a decidedly awkward lunch, Rogan came in through the French shutters and paused in the middle of the room, seeing Roarke sitting at the desk and Leslie going through the day's mail at a rate that clearly announced that all was not quite copacetic between them. "Well," he said.

Roarke looked up. "Ah, Rogan—please, sit down. Perhaps you'd like to resolve a dispute between my daughter and me."

"Of what sort, uncle?" Rogan asked curiously.

"Read this letter," Roarke said, handing Stacey's letter across the desk to him, "and tell me what you believe this guest was requesting."

Rogan read the letter once, frowned and started over, then stopped in the middle and shook his head. "I realize my opinion's unsolicited, but if ye ask me, that's one of the shallowest damned fantasies I ever heard of." He caught Roarke's look and straightened his spine, looking somewhat contrite. "Och, pardon me, uncle. I just don't understand why anyone would want so badly to be on a television program—and one that's been off the air for thirty years to boot."

Roarke looked taken aback; Leslie tried to pretend she wasn't paying attention to the conversation, even though she figured he knew anyway. "Are you saying you believe that's what the lady requested?"

"Looks like it to me, aye," Rogan said, puzzled, handing the letter back. "Why do ye ask?"

Roarke sighed gently and waved him off. "Never mind, Rogan, but thank you for your…uh, assistance." Rogan cast Leslie a questioning look, but she studiously ignored it, forcing him to shrug and walk out with his questions unanswered.

Only then did she look up. "Do you need me to run any errands, Father?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," said Roarke, spearing her with a glare. "You may return to the nineteenth century for me and inform Mrs. Kendall that there is an unavoidable delay in making the requested changes to her fantasy."

Leslie gulped and slowly put down the mail, arising. "All right," she murmured and slipped into the time-travel room, blowing out her breath after she had shut the door and then rolling her eyes at herself. "You and your big mouth, Leslie Enstad…"


	4. Chapter 4

§ § § - August 5, 2006

"An unavoidable delay?" Stacey said, staring hard at Leslie, an ominous undertone in her voice.

"That's what he said," Leslie replied with a helpless little shrug. "I'm sorry, really, but those were his exact words."

Stacey sagged back against a large wooden clothing trunk and closed her eyes for a moment. "You know, I'm starting to think he's dawdling on purpose."

Leslie sat up straight, annoyed by this woman's pushing. "Listen, going back in time isn't a walk in the park! It's not easy to pinpoint a particular moment in history and boot somebody back into it. You want to hear all the stories about how it can go wrong? Like how sometimes, historical figures wind up on the island when they're not supposed to, or people don't go back as far as they want to—or the whole works isn't even operating and nobody gets to go back in time at all? Don't start making this whole business into a cakewalk, Mrs. Kendall. I've seen all three of those examples. Careening through time is not a matter of clicking your heels three times and reciting, 'There's no place like Rome'!"

By the time she finished, Stacey's eyes were competing with the wagon wheels for size. She blinked in amazement and lifted both hands. "Okay, okay, calm down! Geez, I had no idea." She absently scratched her head under the bonnet she was wearing, while Leslie settled into a slightly uneasy, very watchful stance. "But he _is_ working on it, right?"

"Yes, he is," Leslie said with a nod for emphasis. "That's why I'm here telling you this and he's not. Anyway, in the meantime, the least you can do is try to look at the bright side of this. You get to play your character, don't you? And you never know what might happen that could turn this whole thing into something you're glad you experienced. Oh, maybe you don't believe me now, but give it a chance instead of just turning up your nose and crying foul."

Stacey's expression got a little sheepish. "I guess that's what I've been doing, huh? Well, okay, I apologize for that. It's just that I was expecting something totally different from this, and it's kinda hard making the adjustments. I'm already dying for a nice shower and a cold Coke."

Leslie grinned. "I can understand that. Well, just hang in there. We're doing the best we can. Once I have more news for you, I'll come back and give you an update. Who knows, maybe you'll even be on your way back to 1970s Hollywood. But you've got to give my father the opportunity to make the thing work and to get it right."

"Okay, all right." Stacey released a great sigh and scratched under her bonnet again. "Drat it. I think I'm getting fleas. Must be the dog. Hey, you should meet Sadie…fleas or not, she's the sweetest dog I've ever met. Let me show her to you." She arose and whistled softly toward the buckboard. "Sadie! Here, girl, I've got a new friend for you to meet…" She turned back and found herself alone once more. "Dammit to hell, why do they keep _doing_ that to me?"

A face popped up over the far side of the clothing trunk; Emily's eyes were huge with shock and a touch of sisterly glee. "Ooooh, Carrie, I heard that. Cussing's forbidden! You better treat me nice so I don't tell Ma and Pa!" She giggled at Stacey's glare. "Where'd you learn to swear like that?"

"Caleb and Josiah," Stacey retorted craftily, seeing Emily's eyes get even bigger. "Seems boys are allowed and girls aren't. Are you sure it's better to be a girl than a boy?"

"Who ever said I wanted to cuss?" Emily shot back and stuck out her tongue before presenting Stacey with her back. Stacey snorted quietly. She was managing to hold her own in this strange little universe, but thoughts of the Coke she had mentioned to Leslie were beginning to get to her, and she tried to divert her imagination to keep from getting a worse case of thirst than she already had. She clambered back up front and settled down on the other side of Sadie, holding herself away from the panting dog. The heat was getting to all of them, and the draft animals raised so much dust along the trail that she couldn't see anything. In spite of herself, she began daydreaming of the Maine seacoast. She lived close enough to the ocean to walk there and take a quick wading stroll in the cold Atlantic whenever the heat got to be too much, and she was aching for the chance to do that right now.

"It's so hot," she muttered. "I wish we could swim in the river."

"I don't," said Emily. "You might drown." She fielded Stacey's dirty look and shrugged. "I'm picturing snow on top of really high mountains. Like the ones Pa says we're gonna be crossing soon."

_Like the ones we can't see for the dust,_ Stacey added without speaking, sighing heavily. _Please, please, please, Mr. Roarke…hurry as fast as you can!_ She sat there considering Leslie's words for a few minutes, then frowned and peered at the sky before ever so gently tapping her heels together three times and mumbling in a bare whisper, "There's no place like the set of _Trail to Oregon_ in 1976…there's no place like the set of—"

"You've lost your mind," Emily said from beside her. She actually sounded alarmed. "I think I better tell Ma." Before Stacey could gather enough wits to stop her, Emily had taken a flying leap off the buckboard and dashed past the oxen to fill Mary Anna in on all that she'd witnessed. Stacey squeezed her eyes shut and wished mightily that the incantation had worked, despite what Leslie had said.

‡ ‡ ‡

When Leslie stepped through the door into the study, she instantly noticed the difference in temperature; the study was cooler and much more comfortable. She let out a soft _ahh_ of relief, and Roarke looked up. "How did it go?"

Leslie smiled wryly. "She didn't take it too well. I had to explain to her the difficulties of setting up a time-travel fantasy and what might go wrong if it wasn't undertaken with care. I think that helped some."

Roarke chuckled. "I see. I appreciate your efforts, Leslie, and I also apologize for my short temper earlier. I'm afraid I was taken aback by the fact that three of you interpreted Mrs. Kendall's letter entirely differently from the way I did; and I regret to add that my efforts in regard to changing her fantasy are proving largely fruitless."

Leslie settled into the one of the chairs in front of the desk and regarded him thoughtfully. "Well, maybe you shouldn't go to the trouble, then. I mean, just because she's throwing fits that her fantasy wasn't what she asked for…that doesn't mean you actually have to do something about it. Right?"

Roarke regarded her with some bewilderment. "That's a rather sudden change of heart, don't you think?"

"Well…" She shrugged, feeling distinctly sheepish. "When I went back a couple minutes ago, her carrying on was starting to get on my nerves. Then she suggested you were deliberately creating delays, and for some reason that set me right off. I mean, it's not as if time travel is the sort of thing you can indulge in on a lazy Sunday afternoon, by wandering into a phone booth or something and dialing up a destination." Her face heated up at Roarke's increasingly amused gaze. "So I told her so."

"Indeed," Roarke murmured, a smile spreading across his features. Then he got a twinkle in his eye and said unexpectedly, "So, 'there's no place like Rome', hm?" Her mouth dropped open in sheer astonishment, and he laughed softly.

"I should know by now to expect you to do that kind of stuff," she said, rolling her eyes good-naturedly.

Still chuckling, Roarke reached across the desk and patted her hand. "I appreciate your defense, Leslie," he assured her warmly. After a moment he glanced at the clock and sighed gently. "Just between the two of us, I admit to being somewhat tempted to let things remain as they stand, as you suggested. But if the lady is as upset as you tell me she is, perhaps it's better to try to remedy what she perceives as my mistake."

Leslie grinned. "Maybe she just needs a little excitement in the current version of the fantasy. All I've seen of her so far was either down by the river or in the wagon. It was roasting hot and there was dust everywhere, and I had to sit for a couple minutes when I first got there and adjust myself to the smell of horses and oxen. Maybe they need a nice Indian attack or a good solid thunderstorm to break the monotony. And it might settle her down till you can make the changes."

"I'll see what I can do," said Roarke dryly, making her snicker. "Meanwhile, if you'll kindly check on the Merriman fantasy for me, I'd better make a few phone calls before I see to those changes."

Just as Leslie arose, however, there was a strange flash of light, like a giant spark, from somewhere outside, and she froze. Roarke looked around in surprise, then shook his head. "It can't be," he murmured to himself and got up as well. "Follow me, Leslie, I may need some help."

"I thought that was lightning," Leslie said nervously, keeping close to Roarke as she trailed him out onto the front porch. "Did you happen to hear the forecast—"

She never finished the sentence, for Roarke stopped short at the top of the steps. She peered over his shoulder and saw what looked like an enormous cumulus cloud undulating some yards down the lane from where they stood. "What in the world is that?"

"The conditions I have been trying to perfect," Roarke said, sounding almost as amazed as she was. "Leslie, quickly, go back and get Mrs. Kendall."

"While the getting's good, huh?" Leslie muttered and scurried back into the house. Within five minutes she was back with Stacey in tow, the latter still clad in her nineteenth-century pioneer clothing.

"This is really it?" Stacey exclaimed in delight, gaping at the cloud. "What do I do, just go in there and come out the other side on the set of _Trail to Oregon_?"

Roarke hesitated just a second, then said, "Perhaps I'd better check the situation before you go. I'll return in a moment, ladies." Stacey and Leslie watched him half-run for the cloud and vanish inside.

"Don't tell me he isn't sure it's gonna work," Stacey said nervously.

"CYA," said Leslie, and Stacey blinked at her before giggling. Leslie thought she sounded slightly hysterical, and wasn't sure she blamed her.

Roarke was back before a full minute had elapsed. "Yes, this is the scenario you requested, Mrs. Kendall," he said with a smile, extending a hand to help Stacey down the steps. A few natives crossing the yard toward the fountain paused to stare at Stacey's odd attire and at the roiling cloud in the lane, but hastily dispersed when Roarke paused and treated them all to a sharp, suggestive stare.

Stacey clung to Roarke's hand on the way through the cloud; it was worse than the worst fog she'd ever been in, for she couldn't even see her own feet. Then they emerged into a wall of bright sunlight and what seemed like Gargantua's furnace, forcing her to shade her eyes with one hand before she could squint around her. The landscape looked remarkably like the nineteenth-century one she had just left, but this time there were huge lights on tall poles, several television cameras, a covered wagon and a team of horses, and people running around all over the place. She looked hopefully at Roarke, who smiled and nodded. "Yes, Mrs. Kendall, the set of _Trail to Oregon_, in the year 1976."

"Oh, Mr. Roarke, you are absolutely wicked fantastic!" Stacey burst out and threw her arms around him without thinking. "This is perfect, it's exactly what I wanted! I take it all back, you're the king of geniuses! Thank you, thank you!"

Roarke chuckled and stepped back as she disentangled herself from him. "I am very pleased, Mrs. Kendall. You'll find your fellow actors just over there, not far from the covered wagon, where you see the trailers; yours will be among them. I hope you'll find that this time, your fantasy is all you expected."

"It already is," Stacey bubbled, completely missing the slightly ominous undertone in his voice. "Thanks again, Mr. Roarke, and tell Leslie thanks too!" She bounded away for the trailers, overjoyed, unable to wait any longer to meet the actors she had admired for some three decades.

Roarke waited long enough to watch her go, frowning slightly; then he returned through the cloud and emerged on the home side to find Leslie still waiting on the steps. She fell into step beside him as they retreated into the house. "So I presume she's happy," she said quizzically.

"For the moment," Roarke agreed with a slight smile. "I daresay we've earned a break from that fantasy for the time being. Once we've checked on the Merriman fantasy, you can make the usual rounds."

For Leslie, "the usual rounds" nearly always included a stop at Christian's office when he was there. Since the triplets' arrival in their lives, Christian was very much a part-time worker, though he always stayed on top of everything that was happening in all five of his branches. He was peering into the guts of a computer tower when she let herself in, and looked up as if eager for a distraction. She grinned when he lit up. "Hi, my love."

"Hello, my Rose," he said, rising. "How are things?"

"Interesting," she said. "You look like you need a break. Want to come with me on some rounds, while I bring you up to date?"

Christian agreed readily, let Darius know where he was going, and settled into the front seat of the jeep Leslie was driving. "This thing smells new."

She laughed. "That's because it is. Father's getting 2006-model jeeps and some modified cars at a discount, through his usual channels, and he's even having two SUVs adapted so that they don't burn fossil fuels but can run strictly on solar power. He told me the factory's installing the equipment, and then he'll do the rest of it himself."

"He'll do the rest of what?" Christian asked in surprise. "I wasn't aware Mr. Roarke was a mechanic."

"He's not," Leslie replied, caught his bewildered look and grinned. "Even I don't know exactly what he's doing, but I do know that it helps that this island isn't so big that the vehicles have to be driven very far. They'll be used in a small enough area to make it more feasible to use only solar power. For lack of a better word, I suppose I'll have to call it magic. Father's special brand, that is."

"Well, then, it's good to know he can lead the world in leaving less of an impact on the environment," Christian said, amused. "Now what else has been happening?"

Leslie proceeded to fill him in on Stacey Buckner Kendall's fantasy, and he rolled his eyes several times and shook his head. Finally he snorted. "Well, I'd say it's about time she got off your backs. If she doesn't know enough after this to appreciate what she's been given, then she's a hopeless case."

"Either way, we're letting that fantasy follow its own course till tomorrow morning at the very earliest," said Leslie. "Even Father says we've earned the right to take a break. I volunteered for luau duty this evening so I could enjoy the party; want to come with me?"

"I wouldn't miss it," said Christian with a smile. "You're right, you've earned it." She nodded, squeezed his hand for a moment, then applied a little speed once they'd left town, glad to have the Kendall fantasy finally on the proper track. It would be one less thing for her and Roarke both to worry about tonight.


	5. Chapter 5

§ § § - August 5, 2006

Stacey was still in the ecstatic throes of admiring her very own personal trailer when someone pounded on the door and yelled from outside, "Hey, Stacey, you ready yet? We start filming the next scene in five minutes!"

"Be right there!" she called back without thinking, then found herself wondering absurdly what scene was about to be filmed. She wasn't too worried about knowing her lines; after all, she had seen every episode of all six seasons, so many times that she could recite large chunks of dialogue from memory and could identify any episode within its first ten seconds. She peered at the attire that had come along with her from the nineteenth century and decided it would pass muster, then squinted at her face in the mirror that hung over the little vanity table on one wall. Her face was smudged and streaked with dust from her inadvertent adventure on the real Oregon Trail, and she wondered how realistic she was supposed to look. _It's TV,_ she considered. _Probably not too much._ She found a tiny bathroom, containing a sink, stand-up shower stall, and toilet, and hastily washed her face. She knew she was going to need stage makeup, but she had no idea what it consisted of or how to apply it.

She was still uneasily perusing the various jars of makeup and cold cream and other mysterious substances that sat on the vanity when the knocking came back. This time the door opened and a frazzled-looking woman stepped in. "Come on, no time for dawdling. They're just about done setting up to shoot, and they need—" She halted in shock when she got a good look at Stacey's freshly washed face. "Good Lord, girl, why haven't you put on your makeup? You can't go holding up the whole works that way!"

"I just need a little help," Stacey said timidly.

The woman noisily blew out her breath. "I'll say you do. Well, hell, they're just gonna have to wait, I guess. Come on, sit down, I'll handle it. Sweetheart, really, you insisted last year that you knew how to put on your own stage makeup. I can't believe you're backsliding. I mean, even Tiffany's trying to do her own now…" She went on venting her mind while pushing Stacey onto the little stool in front of the vanity, grabbed a jar of something in a startling neon orange hue and opened it, and then began smearing it on Stacey's cheeks and chin.

"I'm gonna look like a clown," Stacey gasped, gawking at her reflection.

The woman's hands stilled. "You know perfectly well what this is," she snapped. "You know TV lights wash you out on film. Sit still and let me finish, dammit, or you'll be so late even Christine won't have any patience left. I've got hardly any time as it is." The fingers had begun smoothing the strange, heavy orange foundation across her skin before the woman had finished the first sentence, and Stacey decided maybe she'd better shut up and try to keep from revealing any more of her ignorance—_at least,_ she thought glumly, _till I get on set and I don't know what scene's being filmed._ She closed her eyes as the woman smeared another few fingertips' worth of foundation on her, trying to think fast. If she was lucky, she wouldn't have the first line (_or the second, third or fourth either,_ she thought), and she could place the dialogue to a particular episode and be able to jump right in, using her vast mental store of memorized scenes.

Fortunately, the makeup artist finished in a few minutes and stepped back to critically stare at Stacey's reflection. "Well, okay, honey, you're gonna have to do for now. Get on out there before they start screaming at the hills. They've already had enough trouble trying to film around airplane noise." She pushed Stacey out the door and dogged her heels all the way to the set past which Stacey had run when she first arrived here.

Upon seeing who was there, Stacey's mood lifted like an overfilled helium balloon. Charles Hobart and Christine Vandermeer—Anselm "Jack" Rogers and his wife Mary Anna—were conferring over a script next to the covered wagon, and Mills Brentwood and Tiffany Gale—Caleb and Emily—had taken to chasing each other around one of the nearby TV cameras. Sammy Hastings—Josiah—stood aside watching with a tolerantly amused expression, as if trying to convey the impression that he was above all this, as the oldest of the child actors.

Sammy saw her first. "Oh, there you are. It's about time. Come on, get on your mark, we've got to get going. Milly, Tiffy, come on, knock it off."

Mills Brentwood and Tiffany Gale stumbled to a halt, laughing and panting. They seemed very young, Stacey thought. "Hey, good, you're here," Tiffany yelled. "Bart said we have to get this scene done before we break for supper and get in the last hour, and I'm starving. What'd you do, go on vacation to Hawaii?"

Mills had punched Sammy in the shoulder, "for calling me Milly," as he said with disgust, and gave Stacey a narrow-eyed look. "Stace, where've you been? I thought even Christine was gonna blow a gasket."

"I've…I had to…get cleaned up," Stacey said lamely, her bubble promptly deflating. She had hoped for a warm, folksy welcome from her favorite actors, had probably even expected it. Where was the cheerful crew she remembered reading about in countless magazine interviews?

Sammy and Tiffany looked at each other; Mills grunted and grabbed Stacey's arm. "Yeah, okay, whatever. Come on, you're supposed to be over here with me." He towed her along with him over to a spot where someone had built a campfire, now little more than softly glowing coals; there were black marks in the dirt. "Now get on your mark, so we can get this done."

Stacey had been through enough that day that she suddenly discovered she had reached her limit. "Fine," she snapped, "so I'm late. I apologize a thousand times. Will it help any if I grovel at your feet? I was a mess from the last scene and I really needed to get cleaned up. And if you want to blame me for not coming over here filthy dirty from that, then talk to my makeup artist over there." She gestured indiscriminately over her shoulder. "I'm hungry too, you know, but I'm sure nobody would've been happy to see me clumping over here caked in dirt." Once she got mad, her brain had started working, so that she could see by the time she wound down that Mills' face had grown slack with surprise. "Guess you never saw _that_ coming, didja, Mills old pal?"

He blinked slowly once at her, then grinned broadly, producing the expression Stacey had had a mad crush on for most of her teen years. "Aw, don't pay any attention to me," he said and laughed. "You know I'm a grump when I'm hungry. Just stand right there where you are, and it oughta be all over in a minute. You did remember they're filming Scene 83 next, right?"

"Well, of course, it comes right after 82," said Stacey importantly, trying to show that she wasn't entirely stupid.

Mills snickered. "You spend too long in the shower and let it melt your brain or something? We filmed Scene 39 last. You know we never shoot in sequence, not unless there'd be an obvious continuity problem. Scene 83, Stacey—the one where Ma and Pa Rogers scold Carrie for getting into that fight with that Indian girl over nothing more than a cheap blue bandanna."

Miraculously, Stacey actually remembered this. "Oh yeah! I know that one! An Indian girl stole Emily's bandanna, and there was a huge scuffle, and Emily's—" She caught Mills' change in expression just in time and swiftly amended, "I mean, Carrie's dress got this huge rip up the side." She froze in place and then began frantically checking her dress. "Hey, wait a minute, this one's not ripped!"

"They're gonna film the scene where Ma sewed it back up again tomorrow," Mills said patiently. "This is the scene after that." He peered searchingly at her. "Don't tell me—you're on another one of those starvation diets and haven't eaten since last Sunday, right? What else would explain your vapor brain?"

"Maybe I've just been hanging out with too many California cornflakes lately," Stacey retorted sweetly.

Mills laughed, somewhat to her consternation, but he had no time for further reaction before a loud, deep male voice yelled, "Places, please, and quiet on the set! Get ready for your lines, Brentwood and Buckner, and…ACTION!"

Instantly Mills' expression shifted again, to something like reproachful compassion, and he said, "Well, Carrie, looks like it's time for you to face the music." He paused, and just as Stacey was beginning to wonder if she was supposed to fill in the gap, added, "Say, you want me to come with you? Moral support?"

The lines were the same familiar ones she had always remembered Caleb speaking to Emily in the episode in question, and the long-memorized dialogue floated right to the surface of her mind, thankfully. At least Roarke had seen fit to drop her into an episode that stood out as one of her favorites of the whole show. "Naw, thanks anyway, Caleb, but I think maybe I'd better go it alone." She released a sigh, just the way Emily did in every rerun. "I guess I have to start learning responsibility somewhere down the line, especially with us being in the middle of nowhere and all."

"That's the spirit," Mills said and grinned. "Good luck, sis."

"I really appreciate it," Stacey replied demurely, to which Mills' face changed expression yet again; at the same time the deep voice hollered, "CUT!"

Startled, Stacey looked around; the actors and crew were eyeing her with varying degrees of exasperation. "Where the hell did that come from?" shouted the director.

"That's what…" Stacey began, then squeezed her eyes shut. That wasn't Emily's line here; she had said that to her parents in the next scene! "Sorry, sorry, I screwed up. Can we do that over again?"

There was a chorus of groans, and the director actually made a growling noise before snapping, "I guess we have no choice, do we, baby? All right, dammit, get in place, let's do it again. And Stacey, sweetums, this one better be on the mark, you got me?" Without waiting for her reply, he howled, "ACTION!"

Mills and Stacey got back on their marks and redid the scene; this time Stacey remembered to murmur a shy thanks at Mills before trudging off toward the wagon with her head hanging, just as she'd watched Tiffany Gale do as Emily in countless reruns. To her immense relief, the director liked it, and everyone stampeded for the caterers without waiting another second.

Thrilled by the large variety of food, Stacey heaped her plate high, then grabbed a Coke (in a glass bottle, she realized the second she touched it: _must be the 70s all right! Cool!_) and found a seat at the same table where her fellow actors were sitting. The first thing she did was slake her nearly-day-long thirst by tipping the bottle back and draining almost half its contents before setting it back down and taking a huge bite of heavenly-smelling lasagna. Her stomach growled loudly in anticipation, and no sooner had she swallowed than she crammed in a big bite of the soft, crusty French bread that had come with it.

"She's been on one of those dumb starvation diets," she suddenly heard Mills tell someone sagely. "That's where the vapor-brain act came from."

Sammy Hastings laughed. "Hey, Buckner, don't let the tabloids get wind of that one. They'll plaster your name and your face all over America for weeks, squealing about how a fifteen-year-old actress is worried about busting out of her prim and proper nineteenth-century costumes."

"It's easy for you knotheads," Tiffany Gale spoke up indignantly. "Nobody cares if the guys get fat. You males can get fat all you want and no one says a word. But let us girls gain an ounce and a half, and suddenly we're too ugly to be on TV anymore. This whole town's full of male chauvinist pigs."

Sammy raised both hands. "Hey, kid, take it easy. You're too young to worry about that stuff."

"Want to bet?" Stacey broke in. "Don't you ever read the tabloids? Doesn't matter how young an actress is—let her gain any weight and they're all screaming. It's no wonder so many girls have anorexia nervosa. Hollywood thinks they should all weigh forty pounds—and that half of that should be in the boobs."

Tiffany howled with glee at this, but Sammy and Mills stared at her. "Anor…what did you say?" Mills asked.

Belatedly Stacey remembered that the disease had not been brought to wide attention till the death of singer Karen Carpenter—which had not occurred till 1983. Now that she had some food in her, though, her quick mind had fuel on which to run, and she came up with, "I know someone who has it. That's the medical name for it. You wait, if Hollywood keeps harping on women's weight, every third teenage girl in America is gonna have this."

"Well, why girls and not guys?" Sammy asked.

"Because only girls have to worry about their weight in this business, moron," Tiffany said. She was younger than Stacey had been, about ten or eleven at this point in the show's run, and her childish gutsiness—something mentioned in many interviews with her—was at full steam. "It's stupid. You guys can pig out on everything in sight, but all those tabloid vultures are always looking over us girls' shoulders and squealing about that fattening piece of lettuce or that greasy carrot stick we're having for lunch."

Stacey giggled. "Good for you, Tiff," she said, and Tiffany cheerfully exchanged a high-five with her. Their conversation rambled on, and Stacey was in her element, feeling now that she fit right in with these folks she'd spent so many years admiring. _Now_ this _is what I asked for, Mr. Roarke,_ she thought contentedly. _This time you did it. I'll forgive you your little slip-up. I'm so happy I just can't stand it. This is so perfect, how could anything possibly go wrong?_ She knew she was probably tempting fate by thinking this; but on the other hand, everything that could have gone wrong with this fantasy already had, as far as she was concerned. Now she was going to reap nothing but fun and joy from this thing. _Yep, I'll be sure to let Mr. Roarke know I'm recommending his island to all my friends and family._ She got up and headed back for the tables to reload her plate, looking forward to hanging out with her showbiz idols.


	6. Chapter 6

§ § § - August 6, 2006

Leslie was feeling very refreshed after a good night's sleep; the family had all had a good breakfast together, and now Haruko was in the yard rolling balls for the triplets to chase while Christian worked on updating the island website and Roarke chose future fantasies to grant. She herself had just finished sorting the last couple of days' worth of mail and was looking for something else to do.

Roarke seemed to sense her restlessness and looked up. "Perhaps you should make a check on Mrs. Kendall's fantasy," he suggested. "We've let her be since yesterday afternoon, and I believe it's a good time to find out how much she is enjoying her experience."

"After all her carrying on, she should be the happiest customer you ever had," Leslie remarked a little wryly, evoking a grin from Roarke and a laugh from Christian. "Be back shortly."

She stepped outside, where somehow, the fog that had allowed Stacey's altered fantasy to take place had neatly popped up from nowhere (_another of Father's little tricks again, _she thought with a smile). A little gingerly, she picked her way through it and emerged into a world brilliant with strong, hot sunshine and alive with birdsong, but apparently deserted otherwise. She was in the open doorway of a vaguely Spanish-style mansion, of the sort that usually belonged to A-list Hollywood stars, where eight or ten cars sat parked around a semicircular driveway. A hot breeze stirred the trees and the meticulously groomed flowers in their carefully tended beds. Several small birds flashed across the sky, but there was no human movement.

Venturing inside, she shortly discovered why. The wide, tiled foyer led to an enormous living room at the back, with massive sliding glass doors open to the elements and allowing the occasional hot breath of air to eddy around the room. Every table surface was cluttered with empty or half-empty bowls of chips, dip, and assorted other edibles; there were beer cans, glasses, and bottles of liquor all over; and about thirty bodies were sprawled across couches, chairs or the floor, all of them sound asleep, most of them snoring. Leslie surveyed the room with startled disbelief, wondering how many similar parties Christian must have once been forced to attend.

Then she stiffened when she caught sight of Stacey Buckner Kendall, looking strangely much younger than she actually was, curled up in an overstuffed chair in a corner, half covered with some sort of throw rug. A glass with a couple of inches of liquid inside was very slowly sliding out of her grasp. Leslie crossed the room toward her with as much agility as she could manage, considering the obstacle course of bodies, furniture, dishware, bottles, cans, glasses and other, nastier trash that she had to navigate to get there.

She plucked the glass from Stacey's limp hand just before it would have tumbled to the floor and left a dark puddle on the cream-colored shag carpet. The movement roused Stacey, who blinked awake with clear reluctance and squinted blearily at Leslie with eyes so red they looked like apples. "Whazzamadder?" she slurred.

"What happened to you?" Leslie asked, too startled to think of anything else to say.

Stacey smiled a little. "Hadda pardy here las' night. Lasted till four-thirty inna mornin'. Lotsa fun…sure beats any pardy I ever had…" She blinked a couple of times before her eyes slipped closed again.

Leslie shook her, just alarmed enough to cast aside propriety. "Hey, wake up. Wake up." Stacey peered up at her again as if she had never seen her before, and Leslie demanded in an urgent whisper, "Whose house is this?"

"Y'oughta see it…place is great. B'longs t'Mills. He's over there somewhere." She made a vague, half-formed gesture; her eyelids had already slid back to mid-mast. "G'wan 'n' say hi…" Her voice trailed off on its way back to sleep.

Leslie shook her again, harder this time. "Stacey, come on!"

Stacey snorted and managed an annoyed glare at her from under heavy eyelids. "What's it with you? Leemee alone, I'm tryin'a sleep here, y'know."

"What were you doing here last night?" Leslie insisted, trying to speak quickly and clearly at the same time. "What was in this glass? Were there any drugs here? What happened?"

"Everybody drinks, Leslie," Stacey slurred reproachfully and shot her a slyly knowing look. "Includin' you an' th'prince. I know, it says so in those magazines."

"A glass of wine occasionally," Leslie said severely. "This is nothing but a mega-binge. What was in—hey, for crying out loud, wake up! _Stacey!"_ But it was no use; Stacey went limp with slumber, and nothing Leslie could say or do would bring her back to consciousness.

She blew out her breath, looked around the room once more, then frowned and picked up Stacey's glass from the lamp table where she'd set it down. She sniffed the contents cautiously and frowned, unsure of what she was smelling but thinking it might be the remains of a rum and Coke. She didn't know much about alcoholic drinks; her only experience had been through a rather wild party her one-time friend Taylor Buchanan had invited her and her other friends to. Only Camille and Myeko had taken her up on the offer, and all three girls had lived to regret it the next morning. Leslie made a face at the memory and put the glass back, then made one last fruitless attempt to rouse Stacey before giving up and retreating outside so she could return home.

Her expression when she came in caught Roarke's attention. "What happened, Leslie?" he asked.

She made a face and collapsed into the nearest chair while Christian looked around, interest diverted from the computer work for the moment. "I found her in Mills Brentwood's mansion," she explained. "Apparently there was a huge party there last night. When I got there, the party room was an unimaginable mess and everybody was sleeping it off."

Roarke frowned slightly, but Christian lifted an amused brow. "Are you sure it was unimaginable, my Rose? Remember, we have two-year-olds."

"This was worse than anything the triplets have done," Leslie told him, and his other brow joined its mate. "Bottles, cans, bowls, glasses, cigarette butts, overflowing ashtrays, unconscious carcasses…Stacey seems to have gotten way into this fantasy, Father. She was snoring as much as anybody else. It was all I could do to wake her up long enough to figure out the basics. I barely saved the carpet from what was left of some drink she was holding. Probably a rum and Coke, if my nose was accurate."

Christian looked wry. "Are you sure? I wouldn't be surprised if it were something worse. I've been to a few such parties in my time, and more often than not it turns out to be straight alcohol with nothing to cut it."

"Well, I wouldn't know," Leslie protested. "I've never really been to a party like that." She noticed Roarke's look and realized he, too, remembered Taylor Buchanan's party. "Well, okay, only one. But it's not as if that made me an expert."

Roarke grinned, particularly when he noticed Christian's heightened interest. "Why don't you enlighten your husband," he suggested, with just a trace of mischief in his warm, cultured baritone.

"Father, you're a demon," she said accusingly, but that resulted only in a chuckle. With a sigh she turned to Christian. "Taylor Buchanan had been here a couple of weeks, and we'd been friends for about half that time, when she flounced around to our lunch table one day and invited all of us to a party at her place in the Enclave. I thought it was a nice gesture and agreed right away, but the rest of my friends weren't so sure. Camille and Myeko eventually agreed to come, but Maureen, Michiko and Lauren didn't want any part of it. They had better sense than we did. Taylor raided the liquor cabinet, and everybody at the party got drunk. Camille and Myeko put on a better show of things than I did—they always were gutsier than the rest of us. I was stupid enough to go along because I didn't want to look like a childish idiot in front of all the others. I'm not sure why Camille and Myeko started drinking, but I did it to keep from being left out. Long story short, they both eventually passed out. As for me, I got sick from overfilling my stomach before I could get to the point where it knocked me out, and after one massive vomiting session in the downstairs powder room, I was forced to call Father to come and get the three of us. I figured by then it was safe because I was the only one who wasn't passed out, and Taylor's sister Michelle still wasn't home from wherever she'd gone. My punishment was missing out on the fantasies the following weekend. That was enough to keep me from ever repeating that mistake."

Christian laughed. "I never would have taken you for the sort to go along simply because everyone else was doing it. You've always had a mind of your own."

"I think said mind took a vacation that night," Leslie said with a wry twist of the mouth, and he laughed again. "Anyway, as I told Father, that doesn't mean I'm an expert on identifying drink ingredients by smell. All I know is, she's into this much farther than I thought she'd get."

"I as well," Roarke admitted, "although I must say I'm not at all surprised by her actions. The lady was determined to wring every last bit of enjoyment out of her, uh, corrected fantasy, and appears to have carried this to extremes."

"In other words, she's not just getting into being a television star for a weekend, she's also embracing the Hollywood wild life," Christian summarized.

"Precisely. In such cases, the only thing we can do is allow the fantasy to go forward as it stands. Mrs. Kendall may yet learn something from her folly."

‡ ‡ ‡

Learning anything from her fantasy was about the farthest thing from Stacey's mind. At the moment it was filled with a loud pounding that attempted to rip her skull asunder with every beat, and it hurt worse than childbearing. She remembered belatedly that it had been too long since her college partying days, and wondered for the first time whether she was her actual age in this fantasy or had regressed to being fifteen. Either way, her hangover was spectacular.

A phone jangled somewhere in the room and she flinched, which combined with the ringing to intensify the blasting in her head. Moans sounded from around her, and for the first time she opened her eyes and took in the disaster scene before her. The phone continued to ring, till finally a rusty voice half croaked, half bellowed, "Lucia, for Chrissake, will you get that damn thing already?"

"Geez, Brentwood," someone grumbled. "It's the middle of the night. Don't your friends have any decency?"

If it was the middle of the night, then why did Stacey's eyes hurt from all the light? She shoved away the scratchy throw rug she had been using as a blanket and squinted at her watch, which read close to two o'clock in the afternoon. That alone made her sit up straight. How much of her fantasy had she just wasted by sleeping off last night's excess?

Her head jarred sharply at the abrupt movement and she sank back again, moaning in agony. She wasn't up to any more scene filming, that much she knew. Her only solace was that nobody else in the room looked any better. She rubbed her eyes and caught sight of Mills Brentwood heaving himself to his feet and picking his clumsy way among the assorted objects, human and otherwise, that littered the floor. Just then a dark-skinned young woman with black hair skimmed back into a bun emerged from another part of the house, carrying a telephone whose long cord trailed behind her like a rat's tail. "Señor Brentwood, telephone is for you," she announced in a thick Spanish accent.

Mills grunted, then took the phone and muttered, "Yeah, thanks, Lucia. Whyn'tcha get started cleaning up in here." He turned away while Lucia got a good eyeful of the scene before her and spoke into the phone. "Yeah, what is it?"

People began to stir reluctantly while Lucia released a soundless sigh and retreated the way she'd come, presumably to get the equipment she needed to begin the massive cleanup. Stacey felt sorry for her. Meanwhile, Mills complained, "Hey, wait a minute, you didn't say we had to…" He rolled his eyes after a few seconds. "Okay, all right, fine. We'll be there. Yeah, she's with me. No problem. Fine, all right, willya calm down already? I said we'll be there! I'll bring her with me." He hung up with a bang that made the bell inside the phone ting, then set it down on the nearest surface without bothering to look and began to pick his way in Stacey's direction.

Slowly Stacey pushed herself to her feet. "I'm awake."

Mills paused about ten feet from her. "You sure about that?" He grinned, and she gave him a dirty look. "Don't look at me like that. You're the one who accepted my invitation without so much as a hiccup. So you never lived the high life before, huh?"

"Some high life," Stacey muttered. "Where do you have to be?"

"Not just me, you too. Gotta be on the set within half an hour or we'll face consequences. Don't worry, I'll take you."

She recoiled. "Are you sure? You're okay to drive? You look worse than I feel, and that's saying something."

"You don't look too hot yourself, honey," Mills shot back with a smirk. "But word's come down from on high and we have to get back and pretend we're goody-goody Caleb and Carrie Rogers today."

She stared at him in amazement, a creeping sense of disillusionment beginning to sneak up on her. "I always thought you enjoyed playing Caleb."

"It's a job, no more," Mills said. "Brings me the money to pay for this place." He made a sweeping motion around him with one arm. "There're other things I'd rather do than put myself across as straitlaced Caleb Rogers from the last century, but on the other hand, you don't argue with popularity and pots of money. So here I am, and here you are too, if you know what's good for you. Come on." He started to turn, then caught himself and gave her a saccharine smile that she didn't like very much. "And just so we don't offend your tender sensibilities, I'll get my chauffeur to take us in today."

Relieved at his statement and disgusted with him all at once, Stacey watched him head out of the room, affecting a swagger that didn't quite come off thanks to his previous imbibing. _How come Mr. Roarke didn't tell me about this part of it?_ she wondered uneasily, and rubbed her eyes again. She knew she had a purse around here somewhere; she might as well start looking for it. Gingerly she started to overturn things on the floor and furniture, using her shoe to prod aside the items she didn't want to touch.

While she and Mills had been talking, his other guests had been gradually departing, mostly in groups; none of them had paused to so much as wave at her, much less come over and say goodbye or anything else. By the time she found the purse, the room was empty except for Lucia, who had brought in a rolling tray cart and was steadily and stolidly loading it with dishes and glasses to be washed. Stacey opened her mouth, on the edge of offering to help, when Lucia seemed to feel Stacey's gaze on her and looked up, freezing in place.

"You better go," Lucia warned, not unkindly. "You don' want to lose your TV show, yes?" The merest ghost of a smile flashed over her face before she turned back to her work.

But Stacey felt compelled to ask worriedly, "Are you sure you'll be able to get this room back in shape again?"

Lucia looked up and shrugged. _"Si,_ I do it all the time." She knelt to gather up some fallen glasses.

It felt like a dismissal, and Stacey took it as such. She shouldered her purse and began to head for the foyer; then some strange little instinct made her stop and carefully drape the discarded throw rug over the chair arm, then try to tidy up the area around the chair she had slept in, just to save Lucia some work.

Mills lurched back into the room then and snorted so loudly that she straightened with a snap. "Knock it off, that's what Lucia gets paid to do. Come on, Stace, we have to get out of here." Stacey followed him toward the door, with one last look back at Lucia, thinking unexpectedly that it was Lucia who was the lucky one here.


	7. Chapter 7

§ § § - August 6, 2006

Mills gave Stacey some aspirin on the way to the set, and she dry-swallowed them with some difficulty, wanting only to get rid of the pounding in her head. She should have had the sense of Sammy Hastings, who had left the party before things got really out of hand; or better yet, that of Tiffany Gale and the adults to stay away from it altogether.

She hadn't realized Mills was watching her till she happened to glance over at him and saw him. "Got a problem?" she asked.

"Thought you held your liquor better than that," he said, amused. "You said you did, at least."

Stacey didn't remember much of what had happened the previous evening after she'd downed about three drinks. "Well, I don't recall saying anything of the kind," she said haughtily.

Mills grinned. "I rest my case." Her disgusted look just made him snicker, and she turned away from him, wondering now what she had ever seen in him. If she'd known what he was really like back in the day…and now, of course, he had a rock band. Was he still the same hell-raising hard drinker she was learning about right now? If he was, she reflected sourly, it was a wonder he was still alive. She kept her face averted from him for the remainder of the ride.

When they arrived, there were reporters waiting, one from _TV Guide_, another from a local newspaper's television insert. Horrified, Stacey dug into her purse, hoping against hope that she'd stashed a nice big pair of sunglasses in there. Mills, for his part, said something fantastically rude under his breath and then blew out a resigned sigh. "They're here, might as well make the best of it. Put on your happy face, Stace, and they'll go away that much quicker—and that much happier too."

The only thing that saved him from a blistering look from her was the discovery of the sunglasses she was searching for. She shoved them onto her face and cleared her throat a couple of times, sorting through likely comments to toss at the reporters once they stepped out of the car. The vehicle glided to a stop and Mills promptly hopped out, looking none the worse for wear, which disgusted Stacey still more. He obviously did this often enough that he was an expert in disguising the effects. Stacey unexpectedly overturned a compact inside the purse and whipped it out, patting the small round makeup pad inside all over her face and hoping for the best.

"Good morning, Miss Buckner!" called out one of the reporters, and Stacey found herself trapped by an interviewer for the next ten minutes, long enough to get the director angry with her before he threatened to have the media representatives thrown off the set.

"I've got a hangover!" Stacey snarled at him as she stalked past him.

"Bully for you, honey," the director shot back without sympathy. "If you can't take it, then either practice on your own time, or stay away from Brentwood's parties. Now get your makeup on and be on set in five minutes."

The aspirin helped only partially, to Stacey's dismay; and all through the three-hour shoot, she kept missing cues, fluffing lines and getting herself into deeper and deeper trouble. Cast and crew alike were becoming increasingly exasperated and angry with her; even the ever-patient Christine Vandermeer, whose reputation seemed to actually be what it was made out to be in the magazines, saw fit to admonish Stacey at one point. "If drinking does that to you, you're better off not doing it," she scolded, with conviction but not much heat. "This was supposed to be a two-hour shoot and you're stretching it out unnecessarily."

"Were we even supposed to be here today?" Stacey asked wearily. For the first time, all she wanted to do was go home.

"Tolley said we'll be finishing up today," Christine replied pointedly. "Or we would, if you hadn't wasted your night soaking up Mills' rum. Pull yourself together, Stacey, and get through this, like the rest of us, like your contract calls for you to do. The sooner you get on the ball, the sooner we can all go home and you can nurse that well-deserved hangover of yours." She turned away and retreated to her mark for this scene, leaving Stacey feeling thoroughly chastened.

After that she doubled her efforts, and managed to finally produce a performance that more or less passed the director's muster. While the crew was setting up the final scene of this episode, Stacey wandered to her trailer in the hope of uncovering some more aspirin. As she passed Tiffany Gale's trailer, she heard a disgusted yell from inside, followed by a hard thud that shook the little vehicle.

Startled, she climbed the little portable metal stairstep to the door and tapped on it, then cautiously stuck her head inside. "Hey, Tiff, you okay?"

"It's gone," Tiffany wailed. "I can't find it anywhere and I'm so mad…"

"What's gone?" Stacey asked, ready to help search for a script or an item from wardrobe.

"My chocolate," Tiffany shouted, seizing a jar of makeup and hurling it across the room. "I'm supposed to have a Hershey bar—with almonds—every day. It's in my contract, I made 'em promise! They forgot to give it to me!" She stomped her foot hard on the floor, producing the thud Stacey had heard earlier.

"You're throwing a tantrum and ruining stuff because of a stupid candy bar?" Stacey demanded incredulously.

"It's in my contract!" Tiffany screamed at her. "If you're just gonna make fun of me, then get out!"

Stacey clasped her head between her hands and moaned. "Geez…you spoiled brat." Without another word she departed the trailer and took refuge in her own, searching halfheartedly for more aspirin. All the while she cursed Mills Brentwood, alcohol in general and rum in particular, directors who made people work on Sundays, spoiled-rotten child actors, and whatever idiotic urge had driven her to seek this fantasy in the first place.

She was on the verge of cursing Roarke when some sixth sense made her look around. Someone had opened the trailer door and was peering in at her; the blinding southern-California sun silhouetted her visitor and made her wince and look away. "Who's that?" she mumbled.

"Just me," said a voice. "Can I come in?"

She sorted through her aching head for identification, but her visitor entered without waiting for a response, closing the door and shutting out the searing light so that she could now recognize Sammy Hastings. "Oh, it's you."

"Nice to see you, too," he said genially, leaning against the door. "So you finally got suckered into going to one of Mills's famous parties."

"Not one of my more shining moments, I admit it," she said, returning her attention to going through every drawer and cabinet she could see. "You got some reason for dropping by? Like giving me some more grief for my sub-par performance today?"

"No," he said, surprising her into pausing to look suspiciously at him. "I figure everybody else ragged you enough. I mean, when even Christine saw fit to give you a piece of her mind, I decided that was the limit of what one person could take. Nah, just thought I'd see how you were doing."

"Crappy, that's how," Stacey said shortly, resuming her search.

"I figured that out on my own," Sammy remarked, his voice conversational. "I've had some experience with Mills's parties. Eighteen years old and gone completely wild. Not that he let being underage stop him—who does in this town? I just learned my lesson after the first one he invited me to. He mixes his drinks stronger than anybody else—that is, he did when I went to that party. For all I know, he doesn't bother with the mixers anymore. Does he?"

"Well, he did put Coke in my rum and Coke," Stacey said, "but now that I think about it, I could barely taste the Coke. I haven't had that kind of drink since college…" She stopped herself. "I mean…ever. I mean…I doubt I'm gonna drink like that once I do start college."

Sammy snickered. "You're right, Mills is mixing 'em stronger than ever, if they've got you confusing yourself like that." Stacey relaxed with relief. Let him think it was the result of her hangover. At this point she was counting down the minutes till this blasted fantasy finally ended. Sammy launched himself off the door and sauntered in her direction, digging in one pocket. "Just wanted to tell you that I remember being in your shoes once. As long as you took away a lesson from this, I figure there's no point in rubbing salt in the wound." He extracted a small aspirin bottle from his pocket and offered it to her.

Stacey smiled at him with such pathetic gratitude that he grinned broadly. "You know, you're a real friend, Sammy. Thanks."

"Anytime." He smiled and dropped a hand on her shoulder in friendly fashion, then winked and let himself out of the trailer. Stacey quickly knocked back two of the tablets, then settled slowly in the chair in front of the makeup mirror and stared at her reflection. Her own bloodshot eyes seemed to mock her.

"_So, Stacey, was it worth it?" _she could just hear her husband asking her. _"Did you get to be on 70s TV and live the high life?"_

"I don't know," she mumbled as though in response. "To tell you the truth, I probably would've been a lot better off with my fantasy the way Mr. Roarke first granted it."

"Oh?" asked a voice from behind her. Stacey caught a flash of white in the mirror and whipped around in the chair.

"Mr. Roarke," she said, blinking. "What are you doing here?"

"It's nearly five o'clock, Mrs. Kendall. Your fantasy is over."

"Oh, thank God!" she burst out, visibly surprising him. "How soon can I get back to Fantasy Island and veg out on the nearest beach?"

"As soon as you wish," Roarke said, amused, "but you surprise me. After all, you were extremely insistent on having your fantasy exactly the way it is now. Has something happened to change your mind?"

Stacey, deeply embarrassed, could barely meet his gaze. "Well…I suppose you could say that. It started out so great. My favorite actors, on my favorite TV show. I mean, what's not to like? But then I found out there's more to these people than they let on. Tiffany Gale's spoiled, Mills Brentwood has booze bashes, even Christine Vandermeer pops off if she gets pushed…and filming a TV show isn't what it seems. When you're not standing around waiting for set and prop people to get everything exactly right, you're being bawled out by a director who puts the blame of the whole world on your shoulders and getting dirty looks every time you miss a cue or forget a line. And I don't think it's the big happy family I used to read about in the magazines. They were all sniping at each other this morning. I had a hangover from last night, but nobody cared. And…well, geez, I just thought it was fun and games. It's not."

Roarke nodded and gestured toward the trailer door. "I see. Well, would you care to come back and refresh yourself, then?"

"Out there? But they're all standing out there probably waiting to light into me for all my goofs all day," she protested.

"As I said, your fantasy is over," Roarke reminded her, opening the door. Tendrils of mist swirled into the room and Stacey realized for the first time that the glaring sun had faded away. "If you'll just follow me…"

She trailed him into the mist, and after about twenty steps they emerged into soft, warm tropical sunshine on the other side. The main house stood a short jog away, and the fountain was merrily spraying rainbows into the air. Stacey sidled over to it and rinsed her hands in the falling droplets, smiling.

"You never did tell me whether you enjoyed your fantasy," Roarke remarked with a quizzical lilt to his voice.

Stacey regarded him, unsure as to her answer. After a moment she suggested, "Is it okay if I sleep on it and let you know?"

"By all means, Mrs. Kendall," he agreed. "Good night, then."

She waved at him and headed eagerly for the bungalow she had seen for no more than fifteen or twenty minutes yesterday morning. As she made for the path that led there, she thought she heard Roarke chuckling, but when she turned back to look, nobody was in the lane at all.

§ § § - August 7, 2006

"That's really what she said, huh?" Leslie asked, laughing, on the way to the plane dock Monday morning. "I can't wait to see what her answer'll be."

"I confess I'm looking forward to it myself," said Roarke, and they grinned at each other. Roarke signaled the plane-dock band into action as he and Leslie alighted from the car, and they took their usual places, watching the lei-draped native girls rush past them and line up on either side of the embarkation ramp. The charter plane was just settling in at the dock, where the attendants swiftly and expertly secured it in place.

Thirty seconds later, a jeep pulled up and discharged Stacey Buckner Kendall. She looked much better than she had the previous evening, Roarke reflected, as if she'd had a good night's sleep. Her skin was a little pink, but her eyes were clear, and she looked happy. "So, Mrs. Kendall, what was the final verdict?" he inquired, with a twinkle in his eye.

Stacey paused to take in the sight of him and of Leslie, then laughed. "I guess, in the end, it was a mixed bag," she admitted. "There was some good, some bad—in both sides of the fantasy. I suppose it just goes to show that nothing's ever what it looks like it is."

"Indeed," said Roarke with a nod. "It appears you have learned quite a few things from your fantasy—both aspects of it."

"Yeah." Stacey released a sigh. "When I got back to my bungalow, I climbed right into a bathing suit and went down to the beach, and cooled off in the ocean for a while before I decided to get some sun. I ended up falling asleep thinking, which is where I got the sunburn here. But at least it wasn't all a waste. I realized that I was centering my life around an illusion, and maybe it's time I moved on to other things."

"Does that mean you're no longer a fan of _Trail to Oregon_?" asked Leslie.

"Oh no, not at all. It'll still always be my favorite show, and I'll probably still wish sometimes that I could have been on it. But it won't be an all-consuming dream like it used to be. I'll just get my fun from writing stories based on it, and talking to my friends online about it, and that kind of thing. From now on, that'll be more than enough for me."

"Perhaps that's best," said Roarke smilingly. "I hope you have a safe and enjoyable trip home."

"Thanks, Mr. Roarke, thanks for everything," Stacey said and shook hands with both him and Leslie before heading toward the dock at a trot. They returned her wave before bidding the weekend's other guests farewell, then lingered long enough to see the plane taxi out of the lagoon before settling back into the car.

"You look thoughtful, Leslie," Roarke observed. "What's on your mind?"

"Something Rogan mentioned last evening when he dropped off those spices for Mariki," said Leslie. "He said his sister's coming for a visit. I thought he was an only child."

Roarke smiled. "No, he isn't…but I know very little about his sister. If she is planning to make a visit here, I'll find it very interesting to meet her."

* * *

_Everybody will go through some soul-searching before this visit is over. Stay tuned for the next tale! And as always, thanks for reading and reviewing!_


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